Well it's been an eventful week on the job front - it never rains it pours - and pours unpaid, long hour, idiotic sales jobs by the bucket. I was offered five jobs in one week - what are you complaining about then? I hear you all cry. Well, here goes...
1) First job was selling Victoria Jackson make-up in out of town shopping centres. In my second group interview we were told Victoria Jackson was huge in Europe, including Ireland and Scotland. Perhaps it's a big seller in Asda, but I'd never heard of it. My suspicions were raised even further when the guy who told me this said he had never heard of Benefit until yesterday. Anyway the job was commission based, so after working 12 hour days you would walk away with $380 (less than 200 quid) a week IF you sold $1200 worth of this rubbish. That would eat up all my time to find something a bit more lucrative. The girls put it to a vote and the decision was unanimous.
2) My second group interview of the day was promoting Palmolive washing powder in out of town supermarkets. Not much to say there.
3) Lucky number three was another 'sales and marketing' job NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED cries the ad. Quite true looking at the bunch that applied. Grace and I were interviewed together and after a three hour power point presentation on marketing with impossibly tough questions like 'what kind of ads would they show on TV during say, Desperate Housewives?' the young MD completely ignored the large stinking elephant standing in the corner of the room shouting 'you'll be selling gas door to door for very little commission! Run!'
4) Cornucopia was our next stop which we did try out - me for three days and Grace is still out there 'charity mugging' or 'chugging' for short. It's a controversial job, and involves face to face fundraising for charities which in our case, was Oxfam. You get paid a retainer week then you're on commission based on how many people you get to sign up and at what price, to give a monthly ongoing donation to support the work Oxfam do. This form of face to face fundraising is the second most cost effective way to raise money (and interest), the first being one-off fundraising events. However my understanding is the charity only start to benefit after the first year of donations, due to the commission based structure and high turnover of staff. The second day I was verbally abused by a middle-aged woman who screamed 'How dare you people (YOU people? Me? We looked related) come over to our country and tell us how to live our lives'. And yesterday I was harrassed by a drunken tramp for about 20 minutes who asked if I'd ever had my throat cut and tried to show me his war medals. Needless to say I haven't even lasted the retainer and have since quit. Hurrah.
5) And my final job is a nice little date entry 4 hour shift Monday to Thursday processing cheques for the Victorian Bushfire. Don't know how long that will last but it keeps me, Kathryn McBride and Charlotte ticking over, especially as the Edinburgh Castle pub is just round the corner for nipping in afterwards.
So the job hunt has been relentless but I also worked at the Grand Prix on the door of a corporate event for four days which was brilliant. I was right in front of the start line where the cars lined up (sadly not the F1 ones though) and I had a view of the screen but the noise! I still can't hear out my right ear properly...but it was worth it to say I was there.
So things aren't too bad and at least we're not dressed as a one-eyed burger handing out fliers in the street. At one low point last week I was starting to envy the poor bugger, I mean burger. In this heat too, the weather has been fantastic for the past week which is good for Melbourne.
Charlotte and I move into our apartment tomorrow which I am just so excited about. No more living out of a backpack and storing your food in coolbags with your name on all of your food! Kathryn and Grace move in the following week so we're getting there.
Hope all is well back home and that wedding plans are coming along nicely for the several brides to be! My sis in law's sister is also about to pop a sprog so I'm checking Facebook constantly for labour updates. Knowing Claire she'll have her status updated 30 seconds after. Please keep the texts and emails coming. It really means a lot when you're so far from home.
Kathryn
